


tired, tired, tired (but never of you)

by ghirga



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Baggage, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghirga/pseuds/ghirga
Summary: A vignette of two tired boys in(maybe)love.And laying there, gazing at Tsukishima’s peaceful face -- beautiful? The words, somehow, worm their way into his mind,-- Yamaguchi feels the tug of residual exhaustion at his eyes, feels himself slowly start to slip back into the clutches of sleep. He feels the wisps of hot breath that reach his face and hears the almost rhythmic puffs of his breathing. He feels his eyes start to close, and he thinks: This is a Tsukishima he could fall in love with.Oh, God damn it.





	tired, tired, tired (but never of you)

It's a cold Saturday morning when he realizes that he's in love with Tsukishima Kei. It isn't a flood of emotion, overwhelming all of his senses and leaving him breathless; it's the slight parting of his lips as he lays asleep, the way his hair is mussed but looks just as it always does when he's awake, the soft sound of his breathing as he lays asleep and blissfully unaware of everything around him.  
  
Yamaguchi's vision is fuzzy when he opens his eyes wider, a painstaking task as he drifts in the ocean between wake and sleep. He forces his vision to focus, forces it to center on the sleeping face in front of him. Despite his plans from the previous day, Yamaguchi somehow ended up sleeping over at Tsukishima's. It wasn't a new prospect to the two of them, and neither was sharing the same bed; the only difference now is the baggage that came with it. Yamaguchi takes a long look at Tsukishima's sleeping face, lets himself get lost in the smooth features and perfectly imperfect skin, and it hits him like a freight train.  
  
When Tsukishima's awake, Yamaguchi thinks to himself, he's all sharp edges; he's rough corners and deep crevices that Yamaguchi was barely lucky enough to excavate. He's stinging retorts and cold eyes, even with the hesitant warmth that simmered far beneath them. It’s warmth that no one ever gets to see, except, Yamaguchi thinks, him. But when he's asleep, though, it's something entirely different.  
  
When Tsukishima’s asleep, he's soft curves and rounded bends. His face, despite his many protests while awake, is the picture of serenity. To Yamaguchi, it looks like he doesn't have a worry in the world; like the boulder of hate and apathy Tsukishima's carried on his shoulders for so long is, if only for a moment, lifted. He watches the rise and fall of his chest and this, Yamaguchi thinks, is a Tsukishima he could fall in love with.  
  
The freight train returns at full speed.  
  
He feels warmth blooming across his face. Quickly, Yamaguchi turns in the bed so that he's facing towards the bedroom door -- _away_ from Tsukishima. In his peripheral vision, he can barely make out the fluorescent numbers on the clock: 6:42. His sleep-addled brain is running a mile a minute, and at this point, Yamaguchi isn't sure if he's in a right enough mind to start suddenly deciding that he's in love with his childhood best friend. Groaning -- inwardly, he hopes,-- Yamaguchi grabs at the covers and buries his face in them, trying hard not to let the freight train come back. The train _will_ stay in the station, damn it, and preferably forever.

Somewhere, in the very back of his mind, the thought comes to fruition: it was inevitable. Of course, Yamaguchi knew that it wasn’t _really_ inevitable; everything he was feeling was his own fault. He could just have easily squashed these feelings the moment they reared their head around. But it _felt_ like it was -- like all the years they had spent together, years where Yamaguchi had followed Tsukishima around and Tsukishima had warded off threats and bullies, had all led up to this _one_ moment. This _one_ moment, where one teenage boy on the verge of falling back asleep figures out that everything he had been feeling before, -- all the little sparks that had manifested whenever he looked at Tsukishima since before the school year had even started,-- really did mean something bigger than he was. Yamaguchi almost laughed out loud; he was very tired -- tired enough to let his mind wander so far that he started waxing poetic about what he was and wasn’t apart of.

Despite himself, Yamaguchi felt himself turning back around in the bed. There’re inches between the two of them, but the distance does little to calm the butterflies fluttering in Yamaguchi’s stomach. He looks at Tsukishima’s sleeping face again, studies the bumps and imperfections on his skin and the sloping of his nose and jaw. He lets himself have this time, during the first quiet hours of the morning where no one but him has to know. and decides that, at least once, he’s allowed this much. And laying there, gazing at Tsukishima’s peaceful face -- beautiful? The words, somehow, worm their way into his mind,-- Yamaguchi feels the tug of residual exhaustion at his eyes, feels himself slowly start to slip back into the clutches of sleep. He feels the wisps of hot breath that reach his face and hears the almost rhythmic puffs of his breathing. He feels his eyes start to close, and he thinks: This is a Tsukishima he could fall in love with.

Oh, God damn it.

 

* * *

 

When Yamaguchi wakes up again, he finds the bed strangely empty. He sits up.

It takes a moment for his vision to adjust from the sudden change of sleep to wake, but when it does, Yamaguchi immediately notices two things: 1. Tsukishima is nowhere to be found and 2. There's the distant clatter of pots and pans coming from downstairs. Turning his whole body to look at the clock, he sees that it's been something close to two hours since he last woke up. 

Yamaguchi stumbles out of the bed and down the stairs, pausing for only a moment only to swipe at his eyes and then his mouth, fuzzy and dry and slightly wet at the sides (gross, he thinks.) Vaguely, it occurs to him that his hair is a mess and he looks like he just woke up -- which, technically, he did. Following the sound to the kitchen, he’s met with the sight of Tsukishima's back huddling over a small toaster.

Tsukishima's hair is just as messy as it was in bed, perhaps even more so now. Yamaguchi can barely see anything while Tsukishima's turned away from him, but he's absolutely certain that the blond's face is scrunched up in frustration and irritation as he tries to uncover the mysteries of the Poptart. Almost instinctively, a smile spreads across Yamaguchi's face. The scene laid out in front of him is endearing and, dare he say it, adorably domestic. It’s domestic enough that Yamaguchi momentarily loses himself in daydreams of a quiet life in the Japanese countryside with Tsukishima, where he can see this scene play out every day for the rest of his life. If he's being honest with himself, Yamaguchi wouldn't mind it.

“You're staring.”

Tsukishima's turned around now (when did that happen?), gold eyes boring straight into Yamaguchi and digging into every layer of his skin. His eyes are bored and carry the same apathetic expression as they always do, though a hint of _something_ else shimmers just beneath the surface.

The words are blunt and startle Yamaguchi out of his musings. Horrified, he realizes that he _had_ been staring at Tsukishima the entire time. Snapping his head away from the blond, Yamaguchi takes interest in the pattern of the dining room table mats -- an alternating pattern of black and white lines, he duly notes. Yamaguchi opens his mouth, then closes it. He opens it again and closes it. Open, close. Open, close. Open, close. He tries and fails to come up with some sort of excuse.

“You look like a fish, you know.”

The words reel Yamaguchi's attention back in again. He brings a hand up to mess with his hair, chuckling out a “Sorry, Tsukki,” that's practically hardwired into his brain. Yamaguchi is certain that if he had a hundred yen for every time he's said those words, he'd be a rich man.

Finally, Yamaguchi moves to rest his forearms on the kitchen island, tilting his head appreciatively at the smell of food. “Didn't know you were this good at cooking,” he comments. He can't see Tsukishima, but Yamaguchi can feel the eye roll. The joke isn't lost on Tsukishima, but he carries the conversation on seriously. “I've always been this good at cooking, Yamaguchi. Maybe you'd have noticed if you didn't eat all your food like you had a knife pointed at your throat.” Yamaguchi’s smile widens, his eyes closing as he does so. “Low blow, Tsukki. Low blow.” Tsukishima turns around pointedly, looking at him from over his glasses. “The only thing low you're going to have is low insulin levels if you keep eating like a mole.”

“A mole,” Yamaguchi repeats, tone laced with confusion; he had never heard that one before. The question forming on Yamaguchi's tongue goes unsaid, interrupted by, “Yes, I got that from a documentary, if that's what you're going to ask.” Yamaguchi laughs, full and unashamed. “Guess you know me well enough to know what I’d ask, huh, Tsukki?” Tsukishima doesn’t answer, but Yamaguchi swears there’s a hint of a smile under all those layers.

A noise from the toaster signals that the Poptarts are finished, and soon, both boys are sat at the dining table. It’s big enough for six people, but they sit next to each other anyway; that’s how it has always been. The Poptarts aren’t the most nutritious breakfast in the world, but Yamaguchi appreciates it all the same. He flashes a smile at Tsukishima, the words of thanks not needing to be said. They eat in comfortable silence, one only occasionally interrupted by Yamaguchi’s thoughts on how nice the day was or whether or not he had remembered to turn off the porch light at home (he did not.) 

By the time Yamaguchi’s nearly finished with his breakfast, and Tsukishima is chugging what remains of his coffee, they’ve lapsed into silence again. The two packs of Poptarts have left Yamaguchi feeling surprisingly fulfilled, even if they weren’t necessarily considered part of a “balanced” breakfast. Yamaguchi cherishes these small moments they have together, even though they’re just that; small. And yet, Yamaguchi thinks, all these small moments add up. The moments are millions and millions and millions of tiny pixels, coming together and forming one image that’ll last too far into the future to even think about. Yamaguchi lets himself get lost in these thoughts, lets his mind wander back and forth and every which way. And then:

“I love you, Tsukki.”

The words are soft, spoken quietly and without thought. Yamaguchi makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. He had _definitely_ not meant to say that.

Tsukishima spits out his coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> this was the first thing i've ever written for hq so my characterizations are definitely at least a little off lsafasfk. i'd love to hear any criticism!
> 
> edit: OH MY GOD i just looked back at this after a long time and thank you all so much for the kudos and comments!!!


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